Q&A: Entourage’s Rex Lee on Lloyd's Tribulations

In its sixth season, Entourage is finally starting to let its characters develop. For most of them, change is good: Vince is back on top. Turtle’s dating Jamie Lynn Sigler. Drama has a steady acting job. Eric moves to his own place. And Ari, easing into middle age, claims “all is well at the Miller-Gold agency.” All is well for everyone, in fact, except for Ari’s beleaguered assistant, Lloyd, who is being put through agent boot camp, suffering Ari’s ritualistic abuse for 100 days as a condition of a long-belated promotion.

As Lloyd’s diary reveals, he has answered over 80,000 phone calls, picked up 104 loads of dry cleaning, and endured 21,900 homophobic or racially insensitive slurs. But he will have to endure a lot more in order to make agent. Amidst Lloyd’s hundred days of hell, the dude who plays Lloyd (Rex Lee) speaks to VF Daily about his favorite TV show (take a guess), his own lack of an entourage, and defiantly wearing “Ari colors.”

Did you know when you took the role of Lloyd that your character would have such a large part in Entourage?

I guess the honest answer is no, not necessarily. Season two is fourteen episodes long and when I was hired they had written the first seven. I knew that my role appeared in four of those episodes but I didn’t necessarily have a lot to do. So I went to work with an agenda, I said: I’m going to go and do the best work I can and I’m just going to defy them not to keep me around. And it turns out after the fact that I found out they hired me hoping that I would do a good job and they would like me. They sort of hoped that I would make them want to keep me around. So it all worked out.

You said Entourage was your favorite show before you auditioned for the role of Lloyd.

That is absolutely true.

What is it about Entourage that makes it so irresistible?

You know I’m not exactly sure what drew me to that first season. I think I just loved the writing. I definitely liked the depiction of Hollywood life and I knew it was an accurate depiction of Hollywood life. Even though the milieu was this extravagant Hollywood life it was also about this guy who had lucked into being a movie star and had kept his childhood friends around him. Not that the new people he met couldn’t be trusted but he absolutely knew his childhood friends were going to stick by him no matter what. I think that element of it appealed to me.

Do you have any childhood friends who are still sticking around?

No and that’s probably the reason I liked it so much. I don’t find it easy to keep friends around. I think I am a little bit flaky. I find it hard to keep in touch with people.

You have been an assistant before—how did this previous career inform your character of Lloyd?

I’d say what I learned from those years was that people in the entertainment business take themselves very, very seriously. It gave me some insight into how people behaved in the entertainment industry, how everything was sort of life or death.

What’s the most outrageous thing you were asked to do as an assistant?

I think I blocked all those situations out of my mind. The only one I can think of is I was once working for a casting director and this directing team came in to see the actors that received callbacks. They ordered lunch and then asked me to plate their lunch. That is not in my job description. I didn’t have an attitude about it but they could tell I was reluctant about to do it. I was like, ‘You want me to what? To plate your lunch?’ Then I went and told my boss that they wanted me to plate their lunch and he said, ‘Yeah you don’t have to do that. I’ll figure it out. Ill either make them do it, or I’ll do it, but you don’t have to do it.’

What is the real life Jeremy Piven-Rex Lee relationship like?

There’s a lot of respect and affection. I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for Jeremy Piven. I think he is incredibly sweet. We get along really well. I hear stories so I am not entirely convinced he gets along with everyone but I know I get along with him so that’s nice.

The Ari-Lloyd dynamic is one of the funniest aspects of Entourage—how will this change if you do become an agent?

I’m not exactly sure. For many years people would sort of link my experience working on the show with the experience of the character. People would say, ‘Don’t you want a promotion?’ I would always say, ‘Well no. I’m an actor.’ I love having scenes with Jeremy. I’m not a writer, so I don’t exactly how, if Lloyd does get a promotion, how the dynamic would change. I’m slightly apprehensive about it. Whatever, I think the writers are pretty brilliant. They’ll figure out it.

Are you worried that playing a character as beloved as Lloyd for so long will typecast you as an actor?

I probably am worried about it to a certain degree but it’s not a huge worry. If it turns out this is the high point of my career and no one has an imagination and no one is willing to cast me in a role different than Lloyd that won’t be the end of the world. If I’ve had a career just playing roles like Lloyd it might not be as satisfying or stimulating as if I got to play a wide variety of roles but I would still be happy I had a career at all.

Let’s talk a little about Lloyd’s after-work style. You arrived on Ari’s doorstep in the first episode of this season wearing an orange/yellow/pink-toned outfit with rolled up color matching harlequin socks, and climbing out of a pretty tricked-out car. What does this say about Lloyd? Are these clues to a new bold, brash, and in-your-face Lloyd?

That’s certainly credit to the costume designer Amy Westcott. She’s brilliant. It’s really all her work. Having said that though, I do have discussions with her all the time about things. I have my own ideas. Sometimes she rejects them. I think that is one of the ways Lloyd is like me: he puts a lot of thought into what he is wearing. I think a lot of thought is put into what is appropriate for the office, how he might express himself through clothing when he is not in the office. My concept of Lloyd is that he definitely does think about what he is wearing at all times.

What sort of ideas have you brought to Amy that she’s been excited about?

Last season, I didn’t really know where the character was going to go in season six. But way back in season five, I had a discussion with her about how I wanted to subtly communicate to the audience, even if it wasn’t on the page, that Lloyd was really there, consciously, working for Ari. As if he had decided that this is the man I’m going to learn agenting from and therefore it is in my best interest as Lloyd to emulate him. So I said to Amy, “This season let’s play a wardrobe game: if you have clothed Jeremy in episode one in a solid suit with a checkered tie then in episode three I want Lloyd to wear a solid suit and checkered tie. If Jeremy is wearing a windowpane suit in episode two then I want to Lloyd to wear a windowpane suit in episode four.”

I wanted to play this game where Lloyd is watching what Ari is wearing and then an episode or two later you would see Lloyd’s version of that same outfit. And I knew that would create work for Amy but she said in a very loose way that this is a great idea and we were going to do it This season there are definitely episodes where I, Rex and Lloyd, do not have to care so much what Ari thinks about what Lloyd is wearing. Jeremy has ideas about what he wears as well. He has sort of unofficial colors that are “Ari colors” that I am not allowed to wear. There are episodes where I am deliberately wearing “Ari colors” to flout him. So it’s very subtle and I’m not sure anyone knows it’s happening. But I do.

Well I will be sure to look out for them.

Specifically, Jeremy really likes those deep chocolate brown suits and certain shades of purple that are his that I kind of don’t wear and that, this season, you will see me wear.

This season the boys seem to be growing up, maturing, and becoming independent-E is moving out, Turtle has a girlfriend, Lloyd demanded a promotion—while this seems to offer a more complex and dynamic plotline for the show it also begs the question what will Entourage be when there isn’t an entourage?

Well, I know how the season ends. By the time you get to episode twelve you are going to think they are farther apart than they are now. I trust in the writers so I think they will make it work. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if in their minds the entourage can still exist even if the boys don’t live together or what. Things are changing. Things are changing in everyone’s lives.